FRAGILITY
Daye Kim
United Kingdom

Sibling relationships exist at the fragile intersection of intimacy and distance. Derived from sib (kinship) and sibja (blood + « one’s own »), « sibling » embodies a paradox: they are extensions of ourselves yet wholly separate. This creates permeable boundaries where love and rivalry, cooperation and competition flow together.
Inspired by rings in « Portrait of Gabrielle d’Estrées and Her Sister, » I use 3D modelling to transform this motif into extreme variations of forms that evolve and distort, mirroring sibling dynamics. Two interconnected rings create a single structure, requiring wearers to negotiate proximity and dependence.
Clear resin casting builds translucent layers where emotions accumulate: affection beneath resentment, loyalty alongside jealousy. Airbrushed colour penetrates transparent surfaces, revealing how feelings stain relationships. The material’s fragility (vulnerability to scratches and yellowing) embodies these precarious bonds.
When worn, the jewellery enforces closeness while revealing constraint. Wearers synchronise movement, acknowledge dependence. The piece becomes a lived diagram: connections that sustain yet restrict, boundaries that protect yet isolate.

Brooch « This relationship is », 2025
37.27 x 37.08 x 42.44 (W x H x D) mm / 5.5 gr
Sterling silver, Clear crystal glass resin
3D programming, airbrush colouring, and silversmithing.

More « FRAGILITY »

Fragility – Yasuko Kanno / Japan

FRAGILITYYasuko KannoJapanEven the most perfectly formed creation will one day perish. Glass and ceramics will shatter, metal will rust, and every living being will eventually face death. Although it often happens unexpectedly, in reality, it is predetermined from the...

Fragility – Lin Stanionis / USA

FRAGILITYLin StanionisUnited StatesFragility can be described as the condition of being delicate or vulnerable. The works submitted for this exhibition embody these characteristics in their forms and associative meanings. In the work, “Seed of Temptation”,...

Fragility – Cindy Zhaohan Li / UK

FRAGILITYCindy Zhaohan-LiUnited KingdomGrowth Ribbon reflects on fragility as a generative state, where pain, transformation, and renewal coexist in the human body. I programmed the Tibetan Auspicious Ribbon Patterns into digital algorithms, transforming their...

Fragility – Noy Alon / Israel

FRAGILITYNoy AlonIsraelA brooch built from ready-made pins soldered together, covered in polymer and transformed into something unexpectedly delicate. Systematically eroded, the piece reveals a paradox: structural strength that appears light and fragile. The erosion...

Fragility – Denis Music / Ukraine

FRAGILITYDenis MusicUkraineFragility is a state of tension — between strength and collapse, between freedom and threat, between life and its disappearance. My brooch Black Cloud was inspired by the installation of Ukrainian artist Oleksiy Sai, which rose above the...

Fragility – Anne Blok / Netherlands

FRAGILITYAnne BlokNetherlandsThe fragile threads of memory Life is fragile; it is temporary and precious. This brooch tells the story of a young life, life in the bud and the rose that never reached full bloom. The brooch tells the story of a thirteen year-old girl....

Fragility – Keith Lewis – USA

FRAGILITYKeith LewisUnited StatesThe Saddest Aisle Consider the Saddest Aisle, that mass of forlorn, abandoned baskets huddled together at the thrift store. In their puppy-eyed, earnest yearning they exude an almost hilarious melancholy. And they long for a new home....

Fragility – Galit Barak / Israel

FRAGILITYGalit BarakIsraelThe artworks feature red gravel stones arranged on a mesh net facing inwards. These stones were sourced from the area of Al-Kunayyisa, an Arab village that was occupied and ethnically cleansed in 1948. Today, the village's ruins are difficult...

Fragility – Eli Hubsch / Israel

FRAGILITYEli HubschIsraelI explore the tension between strength and decay, permanence and transience. Fine silver, soft yet enduring, forms delicate threads and molten structures that embrace rusted iron: a harder metal, yet one that disintegrates with time. The...

Fragility – Ute van der Plaats / Belgium

FRAGILITYUte van der PlaatsBelgiumMy mother was born as a Berglanddeutsche, a German-speaking minority living in the Banat, a region that belongs to Romania since the end of the First World War. In 1944 the family fled from the Russian invasion to Germany. I never got...